Huawei Delays Mate X Launch – Samsung’s Galaxy Fold To Reign As First Foldable Phone In Sept

Samsung and Huawei have spent pretty much the entire year competing to see who can release the world’s first foldable phone, and it looks like we might finally have a winner.

According to a report by TechRadar, the Chinese tech giant revealed at a press event that the Mate X will not be released in September. This means that the Galaxy Fold — which is also slated for a September release — will most likely be the first foldable phone to hit the market.

It’s now unlikely that the Mate X will come out before November, but if it’s any consolation Huawei is still confident that it’ll launch by the end of 2019.

This actually isn’t the first time the Mate X has been delayed — the foldable phone was originally looking at a June release, but Huawei pushed it to September to wait for 5G networks to stabilise around the world.

The postponement shouldn’t come as a complete surprise, though, considering that Huawei CEO Richard Yu told a journalist in late July that the launch of the Mate X would be postponed.

It’s clear that Huawei wants to avoid an embarrassing screen-cracking-on-the-first-day situation, even if it means letting Samsung take the lead.

Despite the delay, Huawei already has big plans for the next iteration of the Mate X. The company reportedly plans to add a second screen at the back of the phone, but at this point we hope they’ll focus their efforts on releasing the first one instead.

Header Image Credit: Huawei

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Huawei CEO Casually Shows Off Latest Version Of Mate X At Airport, Reveals Delay In Launch

Last week, Samsung announced that they had made “improvements” to the Galaxy Fold, implementing several subtle construction changes that will (hopefully) prevent the screen from easily cracking again.

It looks like the Korean tech giant isn’t the only one making changes to their foldable phones, though — a Chinese journalist by the name of Li Wei bumped into none other than Huawei CEO Richard Yu at an airport, and he was apparently more than willing to showcase the latest version of the Mate X.

Any publicity is good publicity, we suppose.

Looking at the photos Li took, the biggest difference from the previous version showcased at Mobile World Congress earlier this year is a fourth camera, which — considering Huawei’s focus on mobile photography — is a rather unsurprising but welcome addition.

Apart from that, the “unlock button” to fold/unfold the phone has been made a little bigger, and the back now sports a carbon fibre-esque design as well. We’re kind of on the fence with the latter, and personally preferred the minimalist black of the first iteration.

Another interesting tidbit of information that Yu revealed was that the launch of the Mate X — which was originally slated to be in September — has been postponed.

The exact length of said postponement is anyone’s guess at this point (it could be anywhere from a few days to a few months), but considering that Samsung is planning to release the Galaxy Fold in September we’d say that the ball is in Huawei’s court.

Whatever the case, it looks like the battle of the foldable phones just got a little more interesting.

Header Image Credit: Li Wei/Weibo

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Huawei’s First Foldable Phone ‘Mate X’ Not Affected By US Ban – Aims To Launch By Sept

After months of radio silence, it looks like foldable phones are back in the spotlight this week — just a few days ago there were reports that Samsung was working on a second foldable phone, despite their Galaxy Fold being put on indefinite hold.

And now, the folks at Huawei have assured customers that despite the recent US ban, the Mate X will still ship with Android OS.

Revealed in an interview with TechRadar, Vincent Pang — President of Huawei’s Western European Region — explained that this was because the phone was “already announced”, and therefore does not fall under the jurisdiction of the ban.

Pang also revealed that the Mate X would be released in September “at the latest”, and reiterated that the delay (the Mate X was originally expected to be released this month) was not due to the ban, but rather Huawei waiting for 5G networks to stabilise around the world.

Considering that the Mate X is a 5G phone, it’s not outside the realm of possibility to think that Huawei would want the phone to be released in an environment where users could get the most out of their device.

On that note, Pang said The Mate X will be available in “any country that has 5G”, so we could possibly see a release in Singapore if all goes well. We haven’t had the chance to get our hands on a foldable or 5G phone so far, so it would be pretty cool to get both at the same time.

Header Image Credit: Huawei

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